TY - JOUR T1 - 6-minute walk testing in COPD: is it reproducible? JF - European Respiratory Journal JO - Eur Respir J SP - 244 LP - 245 DO - 10.1183/09031936.00023011 VL - 38 IS - 2 AU - G. Criner Y1 - 2011/08/01 UR - http://erj.ersjournals.com/content/38/2/244.abstract N2 - The 6-min walk test (6MWT) has historically been used to characterise the functional status of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients. However, over the past few years, the 6MWT has assumed a more central role in the assessment and management of COPD. In COPD, the 6MWT is now routinely used as an outcome measure in clinical trials [1, 2], a prognostic indicator either by itself [3] or as part of a multidimensional index [4], and as a functional threshold that patients must achieve before being considered acceptable candidates for lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) [2] or lung transplantation [5]. Much of the attraction of the 6MWT as an assessment tool in COPD is due to its simplicity of performance, inexpensiveness, responsiveness to standardisation and embodiment of an important functional task (i.e. ambulation). New insights that the manifestations of COPD go well beyond the lung, and include its cardiac and peripheral muscle wasting effects, are additional factors that make a test of functional performance like the 6MWT attractive as an assessment tool [6]. However, to be considered a reliable tool in the assessment of COPD patients, the performance of the 6MWT must be proven to be reproducible in clinical trials as well as in commonly encountered clinical settings.Many variables may affect the performance of a 6MWT. These variables include course length, course layout (linear, oval or continuous circle), whether a … ER -